


Here in the Ashes, Your Soul Cries Out

by furtivus



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Abstract, But also, Episode: s11e01 The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Gen, Kinda, Limited Third Person, Songfic, Sort Of, based off the song thunderclouds, but it swaps to yaz's a couple of times, during the woman who fell to earth, i wrote this in like one hour, kind of a, mostly the doctor's view, no beta we die like (wo)men, omniscient third person, only a little, the thoughts of the doctor, yasmin crushing on the doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 04:37:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16486046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furtivus/pseuds/furtivus
Summary: There in the ashes of the Doctor's fire cry the souls of who she used to be.or,The thoughts of the Thirteenth Doctor leading up to her self-recognition, and why she's so different to the ones who came before her.





	Here in the Ashes, Your Soul Cries Out

He’s felt, for a rather long time, that he isn’t right. He doesn’t know who he is anymore. It’s awfully taxing, waking up each day – or, rather, waking up whenever he decides to sleep – to the feeling of wrongness. Internal wrongness – self wrongness. Wrongness in the blood. Wrongness in the DNA. Wrongness of his very being.

He’s wrong. He’s wrong he’s wrong he’s wrong. He doesn’t know what right means anymore. He’s not happy – he hasn’t been truly happy in so long. He keeps losing people. He keeps losing. He should fix himself and yet he’s too afraid to let himself go, wrong as he is.

 

 

She’s wrong, but in a different way. She’s new, and she’s always wrong when she’s new. She knows this, and yet she can’t think of what wrong things she ever did when she was new. She’s just here and now.

Inside of her she feels the echo of other hers, only they weren’t hers but hims. She wonders momentarily what exactly that means, but then the moment ends and she doesn’t even know she’s a her anymore. She can’t tell the difference between her and him, there’s only them – the them inside of her, but not her because she’s they, that came before.

She – because even though she doesn’t know she’s a she, she is a she – reaches up to the screen and turns it towards her face. She sees herself, though what she sees doesn’t really mean a lot to her in the moment, and she says something, and even though she loses the words the second they pass her lips she’s sure she’s happy with what she sees.

Something feels wrong, but she isn’t sure what. She knows there’s a sense of wrongness around her – the same wrongness that had, until just a minute or so prior, been inside her – but she doesn’t know just what that entails.

She finds out mere seconds later when she pushes a single button, and her whole world turns sideways. Doors open beneath her and she cries out, unable to find words, as she claws desperately at what _was_ the floor.

It’s only as she’s falling through open air, staring up at her exploding TARDIS – her exploding _home_ – that some semblance of clarity returns to her. Her thoughts aren’t particularly coherent, more mental feelings than anything. There’s the overwhelming sense of fear, and regret, and still that inner fire as every cell in her body recreates itself.

And then comes a single coherent thought – she’s only just been born, and she’s going to die again.

 

 

As it would happen, she doesn’t die. She hits the roof of a train carriage so hard that the metal caves in under her, and she feels every bone in her body shatter. But at the same time, they’re perfectly fine – that fire racing through her knitting her broken body back together the instant it comes apart. Still, the pain she feels as she staggers to her feet is indescribable. Any other day, any other time – if she weren’t still regenerating – she’d have died. And boy, can she feel it.

There’s people in front of her, and they’re afraid. She can see it on their faces, feel it in the air around them. They point behind her, at the writhing mass of crackling coils, and maybe it’s not just fear that’s filling the air. There’s an exposed wire above her, and an instinct kicks in that tells her to grab it. She does – because if there’s someone in need, she never refuses – and drives it into the coil of wires.

Coherency returns to her enough that she can speak to the people, even as she begins patting herself down to find – what?

The word ‘screwdriver’ comes to mind, and then things start clicking back into place – not enough for her to understand herself, but enough to begin to.

 

 

The young woman – Yaz, because they’re friends now – calls her Madam, and she remembers that half an hour ago – less than half an hour ago – she was a white-haired Scotsman.  She, unfortunately, still can’t remember her own name. And she’s not even a touch embarrassed when she has to ask what her tongue is called.

She is, however, upset to learn he isn’t a doctor. She doesn’t know why she’s looking for one.

 

 

She doesn’t know what to call them. She knows what the object she fell from is called, though. Her home. Her TARDIS.

 

 

She’s an alien – she knows that much – and she’s a little offended when the others don’t believe her. She can feel her hearts pounding in her chest. She can feel them burn.

 

 

She’s suddenly so tired. She’s so – tired. So…

 

 

Yasmin sits by her, chin resting on her clasped hands. She watches the woman before her – the strange, babbling woman who fell from the sky; who makes no sense but speaks more intelligently than any of them. The woman whose skin is bathed in gold.

She’s alien – undeniably so. If the strange mannerisms and twin pulses didn’t convince her, the sight before her would. She can’t shift her gaze from the strange woman they’ve taken in. She lies across the couch, hands draped lightly across her stomach, eyes closed and expression the calmest it’s been since she arrived. And of course, the golden glow that ripples beneath her skin. It’s indescribable. Inhuman.

She has to admit, this strange alien woman is, by all human standards, merely average. She doesn’t appear exceptional in any way. And yet, Yaz can’t bring herself to think of her as anything less than beautiful.

 

She wakes up in pain, her cells still burning, though nowhere near as brightly. The fires of the sun have dimmed to coals, but she’s still rewriting herself, and it still burns. She’s not ready, but she has to be – her friends need her, and the DNA bomb in her collar won’t let her rest. The DNA bombs in their collars won’t let her rest, either.

It’s hard for her to think with her brain and body moving at two different speeds, but she can concentrate enough to reformat Ryan’s phone. Slamming into the closet helps too, somehow. It’s enough of a jolt to give her a solid train of thought.

The nap didn’t hurt, either.

 

 

Maybe it’s bravery that causes her to run after the alien in the full body armour.

More likely it’s just sheer dumb impulse.

 

 

It feels good to work again. To hold metal and tools in her hands and create with them. To create. She’s good at building this time. It helps distract her, too, from the fact that she doesn’t even know herself yet

So maybe her screwdriver sparks a little when she first turns it on, but that’s okay – it’s a reflection of her, and she loves it, and she’s sparking a little, too.

 

 

She removes the DNA bombs the second she can, because these people – in the short time she’s known them – have become friends to her, and she won’t let anything happen to them.

In the short time she’s known them, they became a team.

She stands in front of them, even though she can’t remember how to fight for her life, when the alien in the full body suit comes close. She puts herself between them, because there’s no way she’s going to let this murdered lay a finger on her friends.

For just a second, the adrenaline and his question sparks her memory, and her name swims to the surface. Then it’s gone again, and maybe she throws a bit of a fit over it.

 

 

She could probably pronounce his name correctly if she wanted to.

She doesn’t particularly want to.

He’s a jerk.

 

 

It’s a construction site, of all places, that he works at. Right at the top of a crane – one they can’t reach, because that mass of gathering coils is guarding it. Her nasty blue friend is far too high up for her liking when they arrive.

She starts climbing without any sort of a plan, which she has a feeling is going to be – and perhaps already was – a regular occurrence for her. She drags Ryan and Yaz along after her. She doesn’t know why, but they feel the best fit for the job. Maybe because the other workers will listen to Graham and Grace before they’ll listen to a couple of barely-adults.

She can only scream out for Karl to climb out of the cab. She can only hope he hears her.

Her plan is absolutely terrible and they all know it, but it’s the only conceivable thing she can think of. Besides, if anyone can figure out how to operate a crane under pressure, it’ll be Yaz and Ryan.

She’s really craving a friend egg sandwich.

She’s uncomfortably high up, and she doesn’t know what’ll happen if she falls from this far now. She has vague, hazy memories of losing a hand hours after regeneration. She’s still not game to fall that far.

She doesn’t realise the coil had swapped cranes until it’s too late. The crane jolts to a stop. She has no idea how to convince Karl to jump, but she doesn’t really need to – the alien behind him is pretty convincing.

Karl doesn’t make it across the gap.

It’s the first time the new her has been angry. And it burns.

 

 

Yaz watches as that woman – that mad, inexplicable, alien woman – leaps across the gap. She watches her jump the cranes. Watches her latch hold and heave herself up.

And when her heart skips a beat, it’s not from the adrenaline.

 

 

Her name is the Doctor.

 

 

She stands over Grace’s body, the embers inside her having died down to ash, and feels her body go cold. She knows it isn’t her fault – Grace chose to come with her, Grace chose to come back onto the building site, Grace chose to climb the crane and save them – but she’s wracked with guilt anyway.

None of them blame her. Even as she runs over and links eyes with Graham, there’s no blame. He knows it was Grace’s choice. He knows it’s not her fault.

If only she could convince herself that.

 

 

She spent her first few hours in the light. Now she’s back in the cold, wrong dark again.

 

 

She stands atop the hill and watches as Ryan tries, again and again, to stay atop the bike. She keeps watch over him. There’s nothing to hurt him but the ground he falls to, but still she guards over him, and watches his tribute to Grace.

 

 

Even Ryan doesn’t blame her. He speaks to her in the moments before the funeral, while he waits for his father, and there’s no indication of blame. No indication that he thinks she’s guilty. She shouldn’t feel guilty. She does.

 

It’s all come back to her – all her past, that is – but she’s still reserved when they ask about her family. She’s lost so many people that it hurts to remember. She’s new and fresh and she doesn’t want to hurt anymore.

She needs to find her ship, and get away from it all – from the hurt and the guilt. She needs to slip back into the darkness to hide from the darkness – to run away to stop herself from running.

Then Yaz says it. Just once sentence.

 _You really need to get out of those clothes_.

And she laughs.

They all laugh.

She laughs, and she feels okay. She still feels guilty, but she also feels okay. She’s stepping back into the light. She’s finding herself. It was easy to laugh when she threw herself backwards into a cupboard using a phone, because she didn’t know herself yet. And she still doesn’t know herself – not this self – but she knows her past, and that makes it harder.

But Yaz made her laugh.

And the guilt feels a little lighter.

 

 

She dumps the old clothes. As good as they looked on her, they were two sizes too big and torn apart at the ends. And they carried with them the past that she was trying to let go of. She needs something new. Something fresh. Something her.

She finds herself in an op-shop. Old, used clothes – once-loved clothes – clothes that tell stories. She gathers into her arms everything she thinks will tell a good story and never mind the mess she makes, or the mess she wears, because when she comes out she’s more comfortable than she’s ever been – plus, she has pockets.

 

 

She steps out of the op-shop, into the light of the sun, and she smiles. She’s light, and she’s in the light. She’s a new start. A new face. She beams and she runs down the street, her coat flapping behind her, just to feel the wind on her face and in her hair. Yaz and Ryan follow close behind, because they assume she’s going back to that workshop like she said – and she is, she wasn’t lying, but this moment is about so much more than that.

She’s happy with these people, even though she knows she’ll have to leave them – but for once, the thought doesn’t shatter her. They always mean the most, the first friends she makes with a new face, but rather than mourn the loss of them she finds herself happy to simply have met them. They instilled in her that lightness, and that happiness, and that new beginning.

She is a new beginning, and she will not waste herself.

And for the first time in a long time, she feels right.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my work, please consider buying me a coffee at ko-fi.com/vesaniart  
> I sure love it when you try to link a page and it won't work  
> My first Doctor Who fic, and I hope it lives up to the name of the show  
> I wanted to write about why the Doctor changes so much as Thirteen, and this was really interesting to write  
> Leave a comment about what you thought, and what you want to see next


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